LIT 295 - Special Topics in Literature in Translation

FDR: HL, GE3
Credits: 3
When Offered: Offered when interest is expressed and departmental resources permit.

Topic for Winter, 2010:

LIT 295: Fictions of the Self in Modern Japanese Literature: Gender, Race, and Class in the Making of ‘I’. This course explores the development of the novel and other prose fiction forms, first taking up the world’s earliest novel in Shikibu’s The Tale of Genji, before quickly advancing to the “I-novel” genre of the late 19th century so particular to Japan. Modern experiments in fictional form fully attentive, and sometimes resistant, to “I-novel” conventions are considered in global and local contexts. Depending on availability, works included are both long and short, popular and canonical by Futabatei, Rampo, Kawabata, Dazai , Tanizaki, Toson, Takahashi, Kurahashi, and others.  Knighton.

Topics for Fall, 2009:

LIT 295: Special Topics in Literature in Translation: Discovering French Theater in Translation.  An exploration of some of the most engaging, troubling, moving, or comical dramatic works from the rich tradition of French theater from Moliere to Beaumarchais, to Hugo, to Beckett, Ionesco, Arrabal and Visniec. Radulescu

LIT 295B: The Grimms Revisited: Fairy Tales and Popular Culture.  Students in this course study fairy tales from the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen and investigate the ways in which canonical tales such as Little Red Riding Hood, The Little Mermaid, Cinderella, and Bluebeard reflect cultural norms and function in the shaping of behavioral blueprints for children, gender roles, courtship rituals, and conceptions of marriage. Students examine the evolution of the fairy-tale genre, and its incorporation into literary and mass culture, and consider multiple interpretive approaches to these formative childhood narratives.  Prager